Simple things evolve on their own all the time. Rocks, piles of dirt, rivers, lakes, ocean currents, economies, the list is huge. Some kinds of things can evolve. Including things that can reproduce themselves. You don't believe evolution partly because you do not understand it.
"Because if they don't follow along...and their competitors do, they are at a disadvantage."
And then they are not following their shareholders 'least common denomonator' interest, $$$. This is dereliction of their duty as officers of the corporation and they get replaced by someone who will.
You missed a somewhat subtle nuance in his statement. Assumption, - you are right and we legally are not at war. Bush can, and is, still claiming that we are at war and is abusing this with his propoganda. Pretty much until the supreame court says no, Bush can still claim this. Whether he is right or wrong is mostly irrelavant.
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and
whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
He is probably using tyranny in the same sense that our founding fathers did. They used terms like 'tyranny of the majority' to describe democracy.
"Tyranny in the sense of "oppressive power" exerted by the government? Where do you see that in the U.S., really?"
Oh, things like warrantless spying, and not mentioning it, even lying about it, until forced by the news media, etc. True, it has not been used for evil purposes, yet, that we know about.(ie that bush has admitted, it is seceret after all) Stupid question though, what is there to keep it this way? An open and honest president?
I am not worried at the moment that my phone calls are being monitored for 'unamerican opinions' but the protections are gone. Removing a bullet-proof vest does not do you any immediate harm. It is what can happen next that is the problem. History tells us that what happens next is often very ugly.
"Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities."
Alexander Hamilton and/or james Madison, Federalist No. 20
Religion in general? Of course you right about that. I was not refering to this at all. I was refering to a specific set of Protestant Christian fundamentalists - including 'born agains'
Roman Catholics have gotten over their old interpretation of Genisis. They now officially state that the theory of evolution more or less describes the method that god used to create the earth etc. They are in no danger from modern science with respect to evolution because they have a pope, who can and does proclaim official doctrine and biblical interpretations. Their religion can change without being destroyed.
Born agains (and related) have the 'inerrant word of god' (the bible) as their sole authority. In practice this means that there is one official interpretation of the meaning of various scriptures. These interpretations are fixed and 'inerrant' because they are based on the inerrant bible. If they were to change their interpretation of any one part of the bible, especially an important one like Genisis, it would effectivly nullify the inerrancy of the bible. This would then put every other interpretation of the bible in question. As this sort of probing and questioning is incompatible with their understanding of 'faith', it would destroy their religion. ie. born-again theology, not christianity or christian beliefs of current born-agains. The born-again ministers recognise this.
The core problem comes about because the theory of evolution is incompatable with their interpretation of genisis chap. 1. One will destroy the other. (unless the fundamenalist members remain forever ignorant - a non-zero probability) When you say that religion changes over time, you are correct. What I was pointing out is that this particular change would result in a particular theology being destroyed, (and set of ministers losing their current positions of power). Their particular doctrine admits no possibility of change. If it 'changes' it is destroyed.
Wow, sounds like a time for occams razor. either they are dead wrong and there is no god, or they are wrong - they misinterpreted genesis.
They can't accept either of these options - 'cause either of them destroys them. They have thrown out every leg to stand on except the bible. If they now admit that their interpretation of the bible is wrong, even on only one chapter, then everything is suspect and they lose all of their power over the congregations.
BTW, b) is meaningless, time dialtion means that the earth is old. c) is useless.
Futures have only an indirect impact on the supply curve. What they really do is allow some people to avoid the price changes if and when we do hit a vertical point in the supply curve. And this is how they indirectly affect the curve - by giving more or less money to the oil industry, which then has more or less to invest in new oil wells etc.
The supply curve at any one point in time is determined by the number of oil wells connected to effective transport, the state of the oil fields under those wells, (these two determine the maximum ammount of oil that can be produced, or in other words, where the curve goes vertical) and the expense per barrel of oil from each well. (this determines the shape of the rest of the curve) Futures affect price, and price does not in any way change the current supply curve. Only how it changes over time. (investment in finding and developing oil fields)
There is a solution to the short-term vertical supply curve problem however. Storage. Great big tanks of crude.
"Basically it comes down to the article spouting on about how their will be copper shortages etc etc, when the real point of fact is just that the price of copper will likely increase, and alternatives will start looking much better. Nothing to see here."
Mostly, yea. Shortages only come about when the supply curve shifts to the left too fast for alternatives to be put into play - and then only if the product is an absolute necessity. Barring government stupid^H^H^Hintervention, I don't see this happpening with copper. Mostly just oil.
To translate your analogy. Cost be damned, it is going to take a while to develop room temp superconductivity. In order for there to be a smooth transition you need copper costs to be high enough to fund such research, for long enough to complete the research, and yet low enough that those essential uses of copper are still cheap enough that we have them 'at all'. If the research turns out to be harder or more expensive - oops, we're screwed.
Imagine for instance a hunter gatherer society that is running out of wood for fuel. No amount of price increases are going to give them enough money to fund fusion research. It is simply too far ahead of them. Hell if it weren't for coal and fission, it would probably still be to far ahead of us given the oil situation.
Yes, the supply curve and the demand curve set prices. However, prices do not change the demand curve or especially in this case the supply curve. Finite in this case means that our current consumption levels are much greater than the resupply levels. For goods like this, any consumption shifts the supply curve to the left. (this assumes that most potential sources have been located - seems to be the case now) The nature of oil production also means that at some point the supply curve goes nearly vertical. You haven't taken this into account.
Government intervention and monopoly intervention are, as you say, short term. (I would be more worried about speculators BTW, they currently seem to have more $$$ than either of the other two.) Your belief that prices would be much cheaper implies that the supply curve is artificially being shifted to the left. To say that this isn't happening at all can be refuted with one acronym, ANWR. But ANWR is not enough, I see far to little evidence of this sort of artificial shift, and plenty of evidence for a fundamental shift of the supply curve to the left. ( a chart of Saudi oil prodiction since the '80's shows a clear maximum - and we are at it. Peak oil production levels were accurately predicted years in advance, etc.)
I have also seen in several of your posts a claim that "our geophysicists still don't really have a clue what is happening more than a few miles beneath the surface" Well, our physicists do not know what is going on between quantum mechanics and general relativity - That does not justify jumping off a cliff saying 'they do not understand gravity enough so I am sure it won't hurt'
To the particulars - 'dry' oil fields filling up. A 'dry' oil field has only 20%-30% of the oil removed. This lowers the pressure in the oil field enough to make the oil not come to the surface by itself. In addition the oil is usually in a porus rock, and takes time to seep through the rock to the wellhead. These 'dry' oil fields are evidence that we underestimated how fast the oil levels would reach a new equilibrium level. They are NOT evidence that oil is being produced in the earth's core. They are therefore not evidence agianst the oil from dead life theory. There is then no reason to assume that oil is anything but finite (we have what we have - no more for a few million years at least)
You are refering to the demand and supply curves. An important concept in econ to be sure. But you are probably thinking about the example curves you saw in class, nice slopes, almost straight lines, like these
Well, the nature of oil drilling means that at some point, the supply curve goes vertical. The amount supplied no longer increases with price. Even before we get to that vertical point though, there is a delay between the increase in price and the shift in the curve. (opening new oil fields takes time), so once spare capacity has been used up (as seems to be the case now) no price increase can change output levels now. Most econ theories assume that demand increases (shit in demand curve) are much slower than output changes. For most products this is true. For oil, it is not. This time delay results in boom and bust price spikes. The important point here is that in the short term (the meaning of 'short term' depends on the nature of the good being produced) ALL supply curves are vertical The wikipedia article mentions vertical supply curves.
This applies double to alternatives. Cost be damned, how long would it take for the US to replace oil use with something (anything!) else? - Years. A decade at least. This means that a serious war that shut off all oil from the middle-east would instantly send prices through the roof, because the increase in price cannot increase supply - even of alternatives - in the short term. And for oil, demand also cannot change rapidly without big problems. (no fuel for trucks - no food transport - no eating, at any price!)
If we could be assured of a gradual (or even merely predictible) demand increase, and a predictable supply, then I would be as, if not more relaxed than you about our energy prospects. Market forces would do as you say and we would find more oil or convert to alternatives smoothly. These things are anything but assured. I am worried.
Minor correction to above - you said "but lots of people who have never known freedom... will not stand up to defend it because they've never had it."
While that is true for some people, I believe that the more common reason is that people are scared of more freedom than they have had before. It is really nothing more than fear of the unknown, anywhere from 'who will take care of ______ when ________ happens?' to 'how will we keep people from doing ________?' This is the reason that so many people want to give up freedom, they are scared of it.
Yes, Parafin expands as it melts and contracts as is freezes. If you pour liquid parafin into a container and let it cool you get a cone-shaped hole in the center. I've done this several times. It doesn't shrink as much as water expands though.
One hydrogen atom is about 1/4 the weight of helium. But it is diatomic, (two hydrogen atoms stick together) so your effective weight difference is only half.
Bouyancy is related to the difference in weight of the gas to that of air. Air is 70% nitrogen, which is also diatomic, relative weights then are 28 for nitrogen, 4 for helium and 2 for hydrogen. Hydrogen then gives you 28-2=26 units of lift to helium's 28-4=24 units. or about 8% better. Not all that much. Hydrogen burns easily, is cheap and can be generated in flight easily. Helium does not burn. Neither are particularly easy to handle/store. These differences tend to mean much more than the 8% extra lift.
The Hindenburg did not use hydrogen for better lift. It used it because the US would not sell helium to Germany (most helium is in Texas)
That quote is far more powerfull if you include more of it. It is also more relavant to this discussion.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Slashdot Mirror
Simple things evolve on their own all the time. Rocks, piles of dirt, rivers, lakes, ocean currents, economies, the list is huge. Some kinds of things can evolve. Including things that can reproduce themselves. You don't believe evolution partly because you do not understand it.
Some can, some can't. How else does hosting two domains on the same server work?
And then they are not following their shareholders 'least common denomonator' interest, $$$. This is dereliction of their duty as officers of the corporation and they get replaced by someone who will.
Until our corporate law changes, this won't.
And it doesn't cost $0.25 either.
Ubuntu Breezy / Firefox gets the avi
You missed a somewhat subtle nuance in his statement. Assumption, - you are right and we legally are not at war. Bush can, and is, still claiming that we are at war and is abusing this with his propoganda. Pretty much until the supreame court says no, Bush can still claim this. Whether he is right or wrong is mostly irrelavant.
RTFA. Everybody interviewed said that they could legally have done so. :( I think that means that they actually have a few nice FBI agents...
"Tyranny in the sense of "oppressive power" exerted by the government? Where do you see that in the U.S., really?"
Oh, things like warrantless spying, and not mentioning it, even lying about it, until forced by the news media, etc. True, it has not been used for evil purposes, yet, that we know about.(ie that bush has admitted, it is seceret after all) Stupid question though, what is there to keep it this way? An open and honest president?
I am not worried at the moment that my phone calls are being monitored for 'unamerican opinions' but the protections are gone. Removing a bullet-proof vest does not do you any immediate harm. It is what can happen next that is the problem. History tells us that what happens next is often very ugly.
Roman Catholics have gotten over their old interpretation of Genisis. They now officially state that the theory of evolution more or less describes the method that god used to create the earth etc. They are in no danger from modern science with respect to evolution because they have a pope, who can and does proclaim official doctrine and biblical interpretations. Their religion can change without being destroyed.
Born agains (and related) have the 'inerrant word of god' (the bible) as their sole authority. In practice this means that there is one official interpretation of the meaning of various scriptures. These interpretations are fixed and 'inerrant' because they are based on the inerrant bible. If they were to change their interpretation of any one part of the bible, especially an important one like Genisis, it would effectivly nullify the inerrancy of the bible. This would then put every other interpretation of the bible in question. As this sort of probing and questioning is incompatible with their understanding of 'faith', it would destroy their religion. ie. born-again theology, not christianity or christian beliefs of current born-agains. The born-again ministers recognise this.
The core problem comes about because the theory of evolution is incompatable with their interpretation of genisis chap. 1. One will destroy the other. (unless the fundamenalist members remain forever ignorant - a non-zero probability) When you say that religion changes over time, you are correct. What I was pointing out is that this particular change would result in a particular theology being destroyed, (and set of ministers losing their current positions of power). Their particular doctrine admits no possibility of change. If it 'changes' it is destroyed.
They can't accept either of these options - 'cause either of them destroys them. They have thrown out every leg to stand on except the bible. If they now admit that their interpretation of the bible is wrong, even on only one chapter, then everything is suspect and they lose all of their power over the congregations.
BTW, b) is meaningless, time dialtion means that the earth is old. c) is useless.
The supply curve at any one point in time is determined by the number of oil wells connected to effective transport, the state of the oil fields under those wells, (these two determine the maximum ammount of oil that can be produced, or in other words, where the curve goes vertical) and the expense per barrel of oil from each well. (this determines the shape of the rest of the curve) Futures affect price, and price does not in any way change the current supply curve. Only how it changes over time. (investment in finding and developing oil fields)
There is a solution to the short-term vertical supply curve problem however. Storage. Great big tanks of crude.
"Basically it comes down to the article spouting on about how their will be copper shortages etc etc, when the real point of fact is just that the price of copper will likely increase, and alternatives will start looking much better. Nothing to see here."
Mostly, yea. Shortages only come about when the supply curve shifts to the left too fast for alternatives to be put into play - and then only if the product is an absolute necessity. Barring government stupid^H^H^Hintervention, I don't see this happpening with copper. Mostly just oil.
Imagine for instance a hunter gatherer society that is running out of wood for fuel. No amount of price increases are going to give them enough money to fund fusion research. It is simply too far ahead of them. Hell if it weren't for coal and fission, it would probably still be to far ahead of us given the oil situation.
Government intervention and monopoly intervention are, as you say, short term. (I would be more worried about speculators BTW, they currently seem to have more $$$ than either of the other two.) Your belief that prices would be much cheaper implies that the supply curve is artificially being shifted to the left. To say that this isn't happening at all can be refuted with one acronym, ANWR. But ANWR is not enough, I see far to little evidence of this sort of artificial shift, and plenty of evidence for a fundamental shift of the supply curve to the left. ( a chart of Saudi oil prodiction since the '80's shows a clear maximum - and we are at it. Peak oil production levels were accurately predicted years in advance, etc.)
I have also seen in several of your posts a claim that "our geophysicists still don't really have a clue what is happening more than a few miles beneath the surface" Well, our physicists do not know what is going on between quantum mechanics and general relativity - That does not justify jumping off a cliff saying 'they do not understand gravity enough so I am sure it won't hurt'
To the particulars - 'dry' oil fields filling up. A 'dry' oil field has only 20%-30% of the oil removed. This lowers the pressure in the oil field enough to make the oil not come to the surface by itself. In addition the oil is usually in a porus rock, and takes time to seep through the rock to the wellhead. These 'dry' oil fields are evidence that we underestimated how fast the oil levels would reach a new equilibrium level. They are NOT evidence that oil is being produced in the earth's core. They are therefore not evidence agianst the oil from dead life theory. There is then no reason to assume that oil is anything but finite (we have what we have - no more for a few million years at least)
None. If our current theories about how oil is made and plate tectonics are only somewhat correct, there is no oil there.
Well, the nature of oil drilling means that at some point, the supply curve goes vertical. The amount supplied no longer increases with price. Even before we get to that vertical point though, there is a delay between the increase in price and the shift in the curve. (opening new oil fields takes time), so once spare capacity has been used up (as seems to be the case now) no price increase can change output levels now. Most econ theories assume that demand increases (shit in demand curve) are much slower than output changes. For most products this is true. For oil, it is not. This time delay results in boom and bust price spikes. The important point here is that in the short term (the meaning of 'short term' depends on the nature of the good being produced) ALL supply curves are vertical The wikipedia article mentions vertical supply curves.
This applies double to alternatives. Cost be damned, how long would it take for the US to replace oil use with something (anything!) else? - Years. A decade at least. This means that a serious war that shut off all oil from the middle-east would instantly send prices through the roof, because the increase in price cannot increase supply - even of alternatives - in the short term. And for oil, demand also cannot change rapidly without big problems. (no fuel for trucks - no food transport - no eating, at any price!)
If we could be assured of a gradual (or even merely predictible) demand increase, and a predictable supply, then I would be as, if not more relaxed than you about our energy prospects. Market forces would do as you say and we would find more oil or convert to alternatives smoothly. These things are anything but assured. I am worried.
While that is true for some people, I believe that the more common reason is that people are scared of more freedom than they have had before. It is really nothing more than fear of the unknown, anywhere from 'who will take care of ______ when ________ happens?' to 'how will we keep people from doing ________?' This is the reason that so many people want to give up freedom, they are scared of it.
Errr... fish eggs?
It is avian flu, not chicken flu. AFAIK all birds get it, not just chickens...
Agreed. However they do not seem at all good at predicting the when as well as the what. They have 'tech X' but not the 'year Y' part.
Yes, Parafin expands as it melts and contracts as is freezes. If you pour liquid parafin into a container and let it cool you get a cone-shaped hole in the center. I've done this several times. It doesn't shrink as much as water expands though.
Bouyancy is related to the difference in weight of the gas to that of air. Air is 70% nitrogen, which is also diatomic, relative weights then are 28 for nitrogen, 4 for helium and 2 for hydrogen. Hydrogen then gives you 28-2=26 units of lift to helium's 28-4=24 units. or about 8% better. Not all that much. Hydrogen burns easily, is cheap and can be generated in flight easily. Helium does not burn. Neither are particularly easy to handle/store. These differences tend to mean much more than the 8% extra lift.
The Hindenburg did not use hydrogen for better lift. It used it because the US would not sell helium to Germany (most helium is in Texas)
yes, I know you were just making a bad joke....
There are plenty of guidelines on how to deal with trademark dispute lawsuits, what are you talking about?
(supposed to be funny....)
Most cases of this are resolved long before the programs are installed.
Google: "goddamn piece of paper" bush constitution
shrimp, lobster, crab, clam......